HR technology musings

Menu

AI for Dummies

What is it?

Artificial Intelligence, as wiki describes it, is “any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of success at some goal.” It goes on to provide other definitions, but I like this derivation “any machine that can process information faster than a human brain with more accuracy and while doing so mimic human cognition (and potentially human emotional) abilities”. This however brings me to my scepticism of AI, if we are teaching machines to mimic us, aren’t we teaching the machines learned bad behaviours? I know it is easier for machine’s to unlearn unlike human beings, but there is potential to just repeat existing mistakes with greater accuracy and speed!

Who is using it?

Primarily disciplines which have large sets of consumer data – the most common examples are Google’s Home (think turning your lights on by talking to a device, playing your favourite music by talking to a machine, etc. you’ve seen the ads!); Amazon’s Alexa; Apple’s Siri, etc. In fact, the most common uses of AI are those serving as Virtual Assistancts i.e. Alex, Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana. The other common areas where AI is used widely is in Video Gaming industry. Smart Cars are another widely known AI phenomenon. Banks are beginning to use AI tools to detect fraudulent activities on accounts by detecting transactions that are not routinely performed by a person! Of course, mobile stores are all recommending purchases using AI technology.

Is anyone in HR using it?

There are emerging case studies all around the world, from ‘chatbots‘ answering HR queries to giving learning recommendations and resume screening, a few brave companies are giving it a shot. If you would like more information on how to use AI or go about exploring it for your organisation, give me a shout!

But here’s a myth I can bust straight away, it is NOT making HR folks more strategic! In fact, if I had a cent for everytime someone threw around AI as the solution for not taking responsibility and properly analysing the problem, I’d be very rich!